I don't mind the rat race but I could do with a little more cheese.

A couple of months ago, I fretted about starting perimenopause due to night sweats and insomnia. Some people suggested a medication as the culprit and I pooh-poohed the idea since I'd been on those meds for months with no ill effects. Well, it turns out that the cause was a too-high dose of Cymbalta. My shrink cut the dose by a third to stop manic episodes last month and the night sweats disappeared after a week. Unless I'm exhausted, I still have a hard time getting to sleep but I'm sleeping more soundly these days. No need for replacement hormones just yet.

The car shopping is done. There's nothing out there right now that is more attractive than what I have right now, to be honest. I decided that since I couldn't get EXACTLY what I wanted, I should hold on to the devil I know and, for once in my life, not borrow (or buy) trouble. I am strangely relieved by this decision.

I don't handle death well. ( Navel-gazing and confessing. )

I don't want to leave this entry on such a self-indulgent point. Oh wait, it's LiveJournal; everything about this place is self-indulgent. Anyway, I have a couple of clothing issues:

Issue one: Oreo chewed through one of my nightgown straps yesterday. Thankfully, it was not on me at the time. I leave my nightgown on my pillow so I can find it in the dark after Hubbyfink goes to bed. Oreo finally noticed a string which needed chewing and I discovered a soggy, chewed up mess on my pillow. Thank goodness it wasn't the aftermath of a horking episode as I'd initially feared. Luckily, the nightgown came with a stupid bow that I'd snipped off and tied to make a headband so I have enough fabric to make a new strap.

Issue two: This may be the last public wearing of the jeans I currently have on. All that cycling to work in real clothes this past winter put a hurt on the seats and inner thighs of my jeans and this pair has gotten especially thin in a potentially scandalous area. Note to self: check those yoga capris I wear on long rides for similar wear and tear...

For grins, I decided to compare my vehicle and bike commute times and distances. I've been tracking my bike commute mileage and time via the MapMyRide app on my phone and for this experiment I tracked the time and distance from unlocking the bike at the bike rack to dismount in Hubbyfink's parking space. For the vehicle commute, I used the stopwatch function on my phone to track my time from unlocking the truck to turning it off at the destination and the truck's odometer to track distance from parking space to parking space.

Bike Commute
Time to/from work: average 25m 20s
Distance: 4.77 miles

Truck Commute
Time to work: 14m 28s (huh. I've always thought it was only 10 minutes.)
Time from work: 20m 30s (huh. I've always thought it was at least 30 minutes.)
Distance: 5.0 miles

There are a couple of surprising results. If you'd asked me before this comparison, I would have assured you that the bike route was a longer distance. How could it not be? I have to swing way north of the direct (vehicular) route to the campus, but then again, the bike route is more diagonal than the right angles of the vehicle route.

The most surprising, to me anyway, results have nothing to do with the comparison between modes of transportation. Both drive times were completely different from what I've assumed them to be. And that twenty minute drive home? A solid ten minutes of that drive is spent sitting at stop lights. I didn't think to time lights on the drive in, but I tend to hit more greens in the morning.

What does all this SCIENCE mean? Not much, in the grand scheme of things. It takes more time to bike -- but not that much more -- and then I need a cool-off period after locking up the bike (and before facing people) that isn't necessary after driving. On the other hand, I'm pretty much guaranteed fifty minutes of physical activity when I don't drive the truck. Despite saving time with the truck, I don't really do anything special with those extra fifteen minutes and I'm usually crabbier after driving in evening traffic.

Testing the post-a-picture-by-phone process.




I spotted this magnificent creature as I dried my hair this morning. Never in my life have I desired a zoom lens as much as today. Neither my cell phone nor my actual camera could zoom in on him enough to show how pretty he is. He had a bright red head and shocking white streaks in his hulking vulture body. I feared for the TV aerial's structural integrity with that amount of bird perching and posing.

As much as I'd hoped our area would get walloped by the monster storm, I was not disappointed to wake to gentle, and non-freezing, rain this morning. There's still plenty of snow on the ground to make the world a wonderland while, at the same time, the roads are clear. Plus, there will be sun this afternoon.

Hubbyfink took the Highlander to the dealership this morning for an oil change and its 10,000 mile service. I thought I'd put a heinous amount of mileage on it, but I've had the truck for ten months as of this coming Friday so I'm running about average, I s'pose. It was weird driving the Prius to work. I know I've driven it since getting the Highlander, but it felt so small. It didn't help that Hubbyfink had pushed the seat way forward and the steering wheel down. I'm not that much shorter! (He keeps thinking I'm a little bitty short thing when I'm only three or four inches shorter than him! Silly 'fink.)

Speaking of little bitty, only four of us showed up to carthew's place for choir practice last night. It worked out pretty well, though, as we were able to drill "Jaquin Jacquet" by Clemens non Papa. What an adorable little tune! What a tongue-twister of lyrics! I think I'm the only one in the group who studied French in school. I provided some pronunciation guidance, but it's Middle French, I think, and the words are weird. Still, fun!

Highlights
The quick-n-dirty shade fly I'd crafted from a Wal-Mart painters tarp was The Place To Be in our camp on Saturday and that pleased me to no end. I guess most folks haven't seen the pavilion since I painted it last summer: it got lots of oohs and aahs and that also pleased me to no end. The baronial potluck on Saturday night was one of the finest meals I've ever had while camping. Roasting marshmallows and then staying up way too late telling tales around the fire was pretty darn awesome, too.

Lowlights
Friday afternoon traffic on I-95. Setting up in the rain. No sleep Friday night. The oppressive heat during take-down on Sunday.

Notes
I was happy that pirategirleee and I were able to get all our gear in the truck and nothing -- not even tent poles -- was on the roof. Still need to experiment with the packing configuration, but I feel confident that I'll be able to get nearly all the Pennsic gear in the truck. Hubbyfink thinks we may have to put the poles on the roof to make room for the bed, but we'll see.

The Incredible's nav system did a great job! The "Where" app was great in that it found the Cracker Barrel we wanted to go to for dinner on Friday. I <3 my phone.

In addition to making new smocks, I need to make some loose-fitting hanging-around-camp clothes. I think I'm going to break down and make a banded stola or two for when I don't feel like being all laced up.

I finally have the title number for the Highlander and was able to order personalized plates. I've been trying to figure out what I wanted for the past month and was trying variations of la fee verte and other absinthe-related names because of the Highlander's green hue. But if I'm totally honest -- and I know my deeply-closeted goth cred will get dinged -- I don't actually like absinthe. So I went another direction and decided to play upon my southern roots. Plus, I really like Joe Cocker's version of the song.

And so, the Highlander is now christened "Delta" and will be sporting DLTA LDY tags. I am a happy camper for now.

I have no idea what we did Friday. Oh, wait. We went to Don Pablo's because I needed a strawberry margarita and queso and then wandered through Target for a while. I don't remember the rest of the evening (see: strawberry margarita).

On Saturday I was up at the crack of 10am and set to cleaning house. Hubbyfink and I put away basket after basket of clean laundry and got the bedroom cleaned up. I straightened the craft room enough to move my drafting materials onto the sewing table. We organized and put away the camping gear and cleaned up the laundry/storage room. Hubbyfink moved all non-perimeter furniture out of the dining and living rooms. I vacuumed while he retrieved a carpet cleaner from Safeway. I retreated to the upper level and scrubbed the bathroom while he stank up the middle level of the house with carpet cleaner. Around 5pm, we called it a day and invited pirategirleee out for dinner and "How to Train Your Dragon".

SUCH a cute movie. We laughed, we almost cried, it was better than "Cats".

We capped off the evening with my revving the Highlander up to 100MPH on the route 28 international speedway just to see how fast I could get it to go. The speedo goes to 140, but I lose my nerve above 100. Thankfully, that particular section of road was clear of both cars and cops so my new car was not impounded after only one week of use.

By Sunday afternoon, the carpets were dry enough that we could move the furniture back into position. I set some stepping stones into the front garden. We window-shopped for basement furniture and I bought a warm weather wreath for the front door. I did a little homework (my set-up in the craft room is SO much more comfortable than perching over the coffee table). We cleaned up the back yard a bit. I mopped the kitchen and entry hall while Hubbyfink vacuumed the stairs and living room. I swept the basement while he took cardboard boxes to the recycling center. In and around all this was lots and lots of laundry. We called it a day around 7pm and finished the evening with a show about Andalusian Spain and "Holmes on Homes".

I didn't do any of my self-vanity projects, but the house is clean and that's good enough for now.

Bossman turned me loose early yesterday and Hubbyfink is usually home early on Fridays. Since we were both home, we decided to get a jump on car shopping and visited Carmax to see what kind of inventory they had and to get an appraisal on Jeepfink. While waiting for our salesguy, I noticed a 2006 Toyota Highlander in the building. It had everything I wanted minus 4WD and an iPod connection and was a fantastic price so I asked to test drive it.

Fell in love. Head over heels. Salesguy searched Carmax's inventory for a 2006-2010 4WD Highlander with tow package. There was one in Woodbridge and someone else had put a hold on it while we were out on the test drive. Bugger. On the upside, Carmax was going to give me better than bluebook value for the Jeep. Score!

This morning, Hubbyfink and I visited Ourisman Toyota, which is where Hubbyfink bought his Prius. They had only one used Highlander with tow package and 4WD and it was gold. Ugh. Seriously, ugh. It drove beautifully, but I just couldn't get past the color. Salesguy suggested a new one. I said I couldn't afford a new one and would keeping looking for another used one (of course, used Highlanders are about as rare as hen's teeth). He asked my maximum price and he wheeled and dealed to get me a new 2010 Highlander with 4WD, power everything, and tow package (and iPod connection!) for slightly more than the price of the 2007 gold monstrosity. Sweet! The zero percent financing, free maintenance, and bumper-to-bumper maintenance didn't hurt the deal, either. (Plus, I found out that my credit score has skyrocketed in the past year, which was pretty sweet.)

Hubbyfink drove Jeepfink home while I adjusted to my new ride. Good gracious is it spacious inside. It's a lot bigger than the Jeep but purrs along like a car. It's super peppy. We got home and I cleaned out all personal belongings from Jeepfink and pulled the title from my files. We headed over to Carmax to sell Jeepfink. Hubbyfink drove the Highlander so I could drive Jeepfink one last time. It was pretty bittersweet, but I barely managed not to cry. The selling process took about forty-five minutes or so; they gave me the GPFINK plates and a check and we were done.

( My new baby. )